Ordinary Being

Ordinary Being

In Zen, we can see that on some levels a chair is not at all a chair. We can do that. However, we just say a chair is a chair. It is trivial to us that a chair is a field or just waves or whatever but Zen is about higher realization of the ordinary - which is extraordinary.

Subjective consciousness experiencing a chair – this is cosmic! It is quantum! It is miraculous!

In Silent Temple Zen we as ordinary beings directly encounter the ordinary as something wonderful. We do not need to use our heads to make something wonderful. Chair is wonderful. Seeing chair is wonderful. Realizing chair and self and non-self as one non-thing is wonderful!

Not a thought!

Many people look for miracles. I don’t look for them because emptiness is a twenty-four/seven miracle! My eyes are open as not a thought!

When we experience suchness, cogitating stops. Why does it stop? It stops because there is absolutely no need to think. We are not thinking chair or ambiguous particle/wave or string theory or anything. No need.

If someone sees us lying on the ground and we are suchness or in bliss, and then we get up, and they ask what happened, we just say, “I was lying down.” So, when we say a chair is a chair, our chair is much different from most other peoples’ chairs. This is because it is so ordinary – so miraculous! “I was just lying down” is Buddha-Heart-Mind.

Not a thought!

Zen is not easy because it is so effortless. In Zen, we don’t think, and everything is alright – completely wonderful. No one believes this. It is simply too difficult to grasp because there is no difficulty associated with it whatsoever. This is why I like to say, “Logic has nothing at all to do with it.”

We be. It is absolutely incomprehensible that we be but it is nevertheless effortless. Are you trying to be now? No, I don’t think so … I hope not …

Effortless chair. Effortless emptiness. Effortless suchness. Effortless being. Effortless interbeing. It is all just like that - EFFORTLESS.

Quantum Mechanics is fun but it will not help you to be kind and to be happy. For kindness and happiness, a chair is needed. If you understand this, you are a zen master.

The Realization is ordinary being. Ordinary being is extraordinary. The non-Realization is extraordinary being. Extraordinary being is ordinary. Logic has nothing at all to do with it.

You know, I just write these talks without stopping or worrying about what I convey. It is effortless because non-I has transcended contradiction and egoistic worry. Non-I is not trapped in the “objective world.”

Not thinking,

white snow

comes

then

leaves.

Drip,

drip,

drip.

When has this zendo

smelled

so

sweet?

Looking for logic, your being is dying. Confusing logic with realization, your being is dying.

Stepping into the zendo,

sound of bell;

incense pervading;

not a thought will do.

Ordinary being is not taught or thought, but it can be taken away.

When the last crow flew,

Oh, my soul

stopped

singing!

Seeing the crow, watching the snows come and go – they are one non-thing as “you” as universe.

Being the subjective,

writing poems that are not poems,

just releasing –

I deeply touch you,

and a chair

remains

a

chair.

Tea?

Light?

One lump or two?

Nothing to be gained; nothing to lose. Nothing to do.

Upon your death-bed,

Your life shall flash before you,

all five minutes of it.

Our life at three and our life at 80 are the same length of time ... but maybe the three year old is wiser …

You cannot increase this moment

but awareness

is another

issue

altogether.

It is the fear. It is the fear of being shamed. The fear of not being loved. The fear of failing. The fear of being left to die. All such things keep us from ordinary being and ordinary goodness.

Being shamed,

not being loved,

failing miserably,

and one step from oblivion,

Not thinking,

white snow

comes

then

leaves.

Drip,

drip,

drip.

When has this zendo

smelled

so

sweet?

The above is ordinary being – fully being – being fully human. Get it?

It is not that we eliminate suffering. We just transcend it and take it under our wing.

I cannot remember where but I once read about a Tibetan master who died on the road traveling with his fellow monks. His teacher came to him, and seeing he was indeed dead, told him to wakeup, which he did, both men looking into each others eyes and laughing, and then he died - again.

Within you is such a beautiful force as ordinary being. Please cultivate that.

Don’t worry about being fancy or a success or a this or a that. Just smell the good sweetness. Sit in your favorite chair. Watch the pretty black crows move across the gray sky.

My mother-in-law just came to visit. We are so lucky! Maybe she will stay forever! I think she is about 80 but I am not sure. On the way home from the airport through the snow she said she told the woman next to her on the plane she was going to make a snow angel. That is ordinary being. Making that snow angel, she will have lived for about five good minutes.

The woman who had sat next to her owned an oil company. She was rich. At the luggage pickup, she did ballet moves for me. That is ordinary being.

Don’t worry!

This life, all five minutes of it – it is not going to get longer or shorter. Yes?

Please be kind to yourself. Start throwing out nearly everything you have been forced to think and believe – even the stuff you think you have not been forced to think and believe.

Step into the miracle.

Much happiness to you!

Please practice kindness.

Silent Temple